Drive (Zayn Malik AU)

2 | Six Months Before..

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[6 MONTHS BEFORE]

The warm, autumnal like sunset peeks through my slightly pushed back curtains as I unpack the first box since I moved here three months ago.

I guess I kept hoping this was all just some big misunderstanding.

The box is marked misc. so I figured it be a bunch of random things I wouldn't need. After all, I was only unpacking for show. My Aunt Lorena had been reminding me nearly everyday to get my things unpacked.

I didn't want to be here. But with my mother dead and my father now in prison clearly I was sh*t out of options..well according to my aunt at least. If it were up to me Id still be down in Los Angeles working at the auto shop on 5th getting paid under the table while I picked up my dad's shifts. But no, my aunt wasn't having it.

"Pia you're only seventeen..a seventeen year old girl should not be living alone.." My aunt would say.

But why not? Living alone and paying bills wasn't hard.

I had been doing it for as long as I can remember and now at seventeen, I knew what had to be paid first and what could be put off until the last minute. I knew how to stretch that last ten dollar bill till pay day. I knew where our emergency cash was hidden beneath the floor board under the refrigerator if things really got tough.I knew my way around practically every engine. I knew that if you showed up to the bakery on Melvin and 21st you could talk the owner into giving you all the items he was going to throw out because he had a heart. I knew I was suppose to lie when the landlord came around questioning my father's seemingly constant absence and why he was suddenly paying cash not check.

I knew all these things because my father taught them to me. But according to the state of California and my aunt, he had failed as a parent, having taught me nothing because he had been too busy playing getaway driver for local drug smugglers-something my father had always kept from me.

I move a few beanie babies to the side and find shards of glass with a photo I had completely forgotten about. When I was forced to pack up my things and move I didn't pay much attention to the things I brought with me. I'm surprised I even brought my birth certificate and favorite clothes because I honesty paid no attention.

I  stare down blankly at the shattered frame looking at the only photo that had been displayed in our small one bedroom apartment. My mother's beautiful radiant smile beaming just like it did in person as she leans against her old car in front of the small home I grew up in before she passed.

I stare down at it like I use to stare when I passed the photo back at our apartment wondering how different my life would be if she lived to see me turn ten..

"Can I come in?" My aunt's ever familiar voice says after a knock from the other side of the shut door.

"It's not locked," I simply reply, gently setting the photo down onto the brand new dresser I insisted wasn't necessary. All of it was unnecessary..this huge room, the big bed, the beautiful decorative pieces you'd find straight out of an interior design magazine..it was all too much for a simple girl like me.

"Just wanted to let you know dinner is ready," Aunt Lorena warmly smiles, one hand on a wash rag she was tucking neatly into the front of her bright yellow apron.

"I'm really not hungry," I lie like I had all summer to avoid eating dinner with the "perfect family".

"Not tonight," My aunt shakes her head no, inching closer to me with a big smile,"Because tonight is the very last day we'll have the chance to eat as a family..you know what with work schedules and school and all, it's just not going to be the same."